The twelve episode anime series known as "Black Lagoon" revolve around a group called Lagoon Company whom are mercenaries for hire that deal in all sorts of tasks such as retrieval, battle, weapons dealing, and so forth. It starts out as Rock a Japanese businessman who is tasked with transporting information for the company he works for to Borneo located in Southeast Asia. Rock happens to be a simple salaryman for Asahi Industries. After a run in with Dutch and Revy of the Lagoon Company, it’s a turn in Rock’s life. From that fateful meeting, Rock learns the harshness of the Southeast Asian underworld such as smuggling, kidnapping, prostitution rings, and so forth. After they retrieve the package from Rock, Lagoon Company ends up "kidnapping" him.
In more ways, Lagoon Company sees that Rock is very invaluable to them. One of the ways Rock is invaluable is his high tolerance to alcohol. It’s revealed that as a salaryman, Rock and many others were required to drink a lot. As a result, Rock has his high tolerance for alcohol as he gets into a drinking contest with Revy, the only female of the group let alone being the muscle. At that rate, the bar they are at called the Yellow Flag that tends to get torn up whenever Revy is around. Bao the owner who is a former Vietnamese soldier put a huge tab on Revy as a result. Rock’s life takes the drastic turn when the bar is attacked and he witnesses his first real life gunfight and blood bath. He wants to return to his normal life at the company. But, he learns that the company he works for is corrupt.
While getting attacked, Rock decides to quit the company after a phone call with his boss. After getting fed up with on how he’s been pushed around left and right by everybody including the company he works for, Rock becomes the newest member of Lagoon Company.
The main characters are very diverse with Rock bringing balance to the team. Rock is the "normal" person of Lagoon Company as he provides the important foundation as he handles managing the accounts, diplomacy, negotiations and so forth. It can be said that Rock may have Stockholm Syndrome. His skills and knowledge in various fields come invaluable to Lagoon Company. However, Rock doesn’t like the notion of killing and doesn’t like guns period. Rock tends to think of joining Lagoon Company as a means to get back at the people that have pushed him around all of his life. At the same time, he feels that Lagoon Company is the group that gives him the necessary adrenaline rush.
Revy is an American born Chinese woman or (ABC) who is the muscle. It’s an interesting turn as Dutch the leader who is a large muscular African-American male doesn’t participate in fighting that much. As a result, Revy is the muscle and gets involved with most of the fighting. She is attractive but is very much psychotic as she prefers to use fear and brute force. Revy can be considered the unscrupulous killer of the bunch.
Dutch is the leader of Lagoon Company as he is more calm and jaded. Of all the people, Dutch has the most battle experience due to his time as a United States Marine fighting in the Vietnam War. Of Lagoon Company, Dutch is the calm and jaded moralist who has seen his fair share of combat and corruption.
Benny is the technology specialist and mechanic. He’s pretty much in the same boat as Rock as he was rescued by Revy. Like Rock, Benny has a dislike for guns and fighting. The two of them seem to be the most balanced of Lagoon Company. While Rock has knowledge of languages, history, and so forth, Benny has skills with machines, computers, and programming.
Black Lagoon brings an interesting premise as how a person can get taken from his normal life and gets brought into a life dealing with the Southeast Asian crime world.
This can be dubbed as the anime version of "Lord of War" as they have to deal with the Yakuza, Russian Mafia, Chinese Triads, rival mercenaries, Italian mafia, Colombian Drug Cartels, and Neo Nazis. As a four man mercenary group, Black Lagoon also brings the feel of the SNK arcade shooter called "Shock Troopers: 2nd Squad".
Keep in mind that this anime isn’t for kids as there is a good amount of profanity involved with Revy using the most. There is a lot of graphic violence involved with Black Lagoon as well. Everything is drawn in a realistic style and almost everything seems to be grounded in reality. For everybody else, Black Lagoon is an interesting series to watch.
Anybody who is a fan of stylish gun fights, explosives, political intrigue, and crime drams will probably enjoy Black Lagoon. Black Lagoon is easier to find subtitled than a dubbed version. It’s unknown if and when Black Lagoon will be aired on any North American network.